Hey!

It has been a while since the last update and we are now in a completely different country!

After our eventful journey to Siem Reap in Cambodia, we didn't get much sleep as we woke up at 4.30am to head to the Temples of Angkor Wat for sunrise. We hired a tuk tuk (motorbike pulling a 2 seater carriage!) driver for the day to take us to all the temples we wanted to see! The temples were incredible, especially as most of them are over a 1000 year's old, we could only imagine how amazing they were back then. We saw 10 temples in all, our favourites being Banteay Srei (a small temple with the most intricate carvings), Ta Prohm (a temple which is now intertwined with the tree's and the setting for one of the Tomb Raider films), and Bayon (a huge temple which has loads of faces!). Hopefully we will get some pics uploaded to do the temples justice. Throughout the whole day we were under siege from loads of little Cambodian kids trying to make a dollar. Most were cute and some spoke the most incredible english (better than Cheryl!). Cheryl did make the cardinal mistake once though by showing an interest in one of the books a little kid was selling, he then followed us round for ages until we gave in and bought it (for $2, he did originally ask for $10)!

The next day was spent relaxing after our tour of the temples, we headed to the Night Market in Siem Reap which was great fun. There were loads of little huts selling all sorts of clothes and souviners...ofcourse we bought some! In the night market we also had a 'Fish Massage' which consisted of us putting our feet into a mini pool and having lots of little Chin Chin fish nibble the dead skin off - although from Cheryl's reaction you would have thought they were mini piranha's.

After Siem Reap we took the short (and rather horrific) 4 hour journey to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. The roads were rather bumpy to say the least, but we couldn't really complain for $6 each! Whilst in Phnom Penh we visited the Choeung Ek Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. These sites were where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed thousands of Cambodian's during their rule of terror in the 1970's. It was quite horrific what they did (akin to Nazi Germany) especially as this all happened fairly recently. In total, over 3million Cambodians died during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, just over 40% of the population. To lighten the mood, in the evening we had some traditional Cambodian food at a restuarant called Frizz. This was essentially a 'Volcano Pot' (a grill) on the table which we used to cook our meat and vegetables. Once cooked, we wrapped the meat/veg in a salad leaf, dunked it into a chilli/pepper sauce and then tried to eat it before it all fell apart!

We moved onto Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on the 29th June, the journey took about 6 hours even though the distance was around 240km. This was mainly due to long queues crossing the border...the Vietnamese are very thorough! HCMC was completely mad, crossing the road required nerves of steel and a fair bit of luck not getting run over by one of the millions of motorbikes.

On our first full day in HCMC we headed to the War Remnants museum which houses lots of different artefacts from the American - Vietnam war. It was a really interesting day out. Unfortunately, Cheryl got a bit ill on this day so we didn't get to see very much more of HCMC...but that gives us an excuse to come back!

After HCMC, we had a 10 hour bus journey to Nha Trang on the east coast of Vietnam. Nha Trang is famous for being a seaside resort so is full of tourists and lots of locals too! The beaches are awesome and the water isn't as hot as in Thailand! Yesterday we headed to the Thap Ba Hot Springs for a soak in the mud baths and some cleansing in the mineral water. We also had a full body massage too! Today we went on a boat trip to the Islands surrounding Nha Trang for some snorkelling, to see the Aquarium and for some partying in the sea (we're not joking, they made everyone jump in and drink some really strong wine!). We are in Nha Trang for 2 more nights before taking the sleeper bus (described in the guide book as "hell") to Hoi An.

Sorry for the long blog, must remember to update more often!

Happy reading, hope everyone is well back home :)

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